Impact of van der Waals forces on the classical shuttle instability

2003/04/30 by T. Nord, Andreas Isacsson, A. Isacsson
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena #Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics #Hamaker constant #Instability #Mechanics #Physics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum mechanics #Van der Waals radius #cond-mat.mes-hall #van der Waals force

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.69.035309

published as T. Nord and A. Isacsson, Phys. Rev. B 69, 035309 (2004) · minor revisions, updated references, Article published in Phys. Rev. B 69, 035309 (2004)

openalex publication_date 2004/01/15 · arxiv created 2004/02/11 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The effects of including the van der Waals interaction in the modeling of the single electron shuttle have been investigated numerically. It is demonstrated that the relative strength of the van der Waals forces and the elastic restoring forces determine the characteristics of the shuttle instability. In the case of weak elastic forces and low voltages the grain is trapped close to one lead, and this trapping can be overcome by Coulomb forces by applying a bias voltage V larger than a threshold voltage V_u. This allows for grain motion leading to an increase in current by several orders of magnitude above the transition voltage V_u. Associated with the process is also hysteresis in the I\ensuremath-V characteristics.

Citations

• Incoherent dynamics of vibrating single-molecule transistors
• Accuracy of a mechanical single-electron shuttle
• Carbon Nanotube-Based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing
• Shuttle instability in self-assembled Coulomb blockade nanostructures
• Dynamics of a three-terminal mechanically flexible tunneling contact
• Nanomechanical Resonator Shuttling Single Electrons at Radio Frequencies